


I Get on My Knees and Pray

by dilapidatedcorvid



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Blasphemy, Chains, Character Study, Church Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Harrow the Ninth Spoilers (Locked Tomb Trilogy), Improper Use of Catholic Rituals, Oaths & Vows, Oral Sex, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:41:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilapidatedcorvid/pseuds/dilapidatedcorvid
Summary: Harrow's breath catches. Gideon smells of incense, of old and disintegrating bone, of greasepaint and musty Ninth air.“My cavalier,” Gideon breathes. “Will you make your devotion known to me, Harrow?” Gideon lifts a hand to cup Harrow’s face. Her thumb, free of callouses, smooths over the scar on Harrow’s cheek. “Will you venerate me with your adoration?”
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 40
Kudos: 170





	I Get on My Knees and Pray

The bottoms of boots click along the tiles of the floor with every step, echoing against the skull-lined arches along the length of the nave. Shadows fall against the sides of pews, a facsimile of crisp strides made prancing by the flickering rails of a sickly, solemn sort of yellow light emanating from the tubes running along the centre aisle.

Harrow Nova stops at the crossing of the sanctuary, the transepts opening like arms spread wide in veneration. One hand rests on her black rapier hanging from her left hip and the slow rattle of chain on the right plays a comforting dirge, muffled by thick layers of black robe. She reaches with a hand to push back the cowl of her robes just far enough to take in the scene before her.

Another person stands before the altar at the front of the sanctum, hands clasped around knucklebones joined on string, thumbing through them in prayer and contemplative silence. Candelabras holding thick sticks of fat drip its melted contents, thin wisps of smoke filling the air with the smell of burning grease and wreathing the figure in question. Though draped in the same black robes that made every penitent fade into the shadows of Drearburh, there is no mistaking the Daughter.

Harrow moves slowly to stand in silence half a step behind her, eyes fixed on the apse. The King of the Nine Renewals himself stands there—painted onto the ceiling—his head wreathed in bows of bone. To one side of him stands Anastasia the First dressed in flowing midnight robes, and on the other, Samael Novenary looms over the ambulatory, his wrists—chained together—outstretched to welcome the weary pilgrims to this place of sacred rest. The very same chain now hangs heavily on Harrow’s belt, clinking quietly when Harrow turns to look at Gideon.

The Daughter’s face is obfuscated by the shadows of her cowl, but her jaw, bright white with ceremonial paint and peeking out from under the hood, continues to move her lips in silent petition to the Undying King. It is a handsome face shrouded in darkness, a small assured smile matching her mild demeanour. 

Gideon Nonagesimus is a reminder of everything Harrow could have been. She despises to want for her.

The knuckles clack with every pass of her fingers and Harrow loses herself to the meditative sound. They are prayers Harrow grew up with and it does not take long before Harrow is praying synchronously, the minute movements of her lips matching the Daughter’s. 

Then finally, after what feels an age of prayer, Gideon speaks.

“Harrow.”

Gideon sounds like she hasn’t spoken in hours. Her voice is dry and raspy and when she stretches her neck, the crack of her cervical vertebrae tells Harrow she’s been here since she woke in the most absurd hours of the morning. Her face is painted in the most beautiful skull of the Ninth, the sacramental skull of Zealot’s Cry of Final Exaltations, and liquid gold eyes hold a look of intensity that makes Harrow’s stomach seize.

“My lady, first flower of the Ninth House,” she says. She feels like something has lodged itself tight in her throat. She watches Gideon lick her chapped lips and smile. Soft. Sacred. “I have come to swear my oaths.”

Gideon turns and looks her up and down, appraising. Harrow had spent a full hour more than she usually does applying her death’s mask this morning, accepting only the most perfect skull her shaking hands could muster. It seems foolish now to place such import on the Daughter’s assessment, but Harrow has stood under the heat of Gideon’s gaze before and it feels of paramount priority to not be found lacking.

Gideon reaches out and for a horrible moment Harrow’s lips part and she braces herself for fingers on her cheek. And then Gideon pushes the hood off her hair cropped close to the scalp to bare her face and head. Somehow this is worse. There is no barrier between her and Gideon and she feels utterly naked despite the paint and her robes.

Finally, she is relieved of unflinching attention when Gideon, apparently pleased with what greets her eyes, turns and snaps her fingers. A skeletal construct in the transept comes into view, brushing away at a small altar. The Daughter waves her hand and the osseous servant goes without protest, the clicking of tarsals disappearing into the Drearburh darkness. There are no witnesses, only Gideon, herself, and the one hundred and sixteen grimly smiling skulls that watch from the vaulted ceiling.

Gideon exhales loudly, scuffing her boot on the moulding carpet, and turns to take both of Harrow’s hands in hers. Her long fingers extend beyond Harrow’s ulnar styloid. This is not the first time Harrow has been cognisant of how much smaller her roughened and calloused hands are than Gideon’s. The glow of gas-discharged lights and of flickering candles dance along the side of Gideon’s nose and Harrow commits this vision to memory, etching the lines of her strong jaw, her broad forehead, the lines of her cheeks, into memory.

“Harrowhark Nova. Cavalier primary of the Ninth House.”

The title still brings a chill to Harrow’s spine. Gideon pauses to look at her and Harrow can feel brilliant eyes tracing over the sharp lines of her paint, the scars that mar her skin, the soft hairs painted white that dust her upper lip. She squeezes their clasped hands gently and Harrow feels the hairs on her arms stand in anticipation.

“Will you remain by my side as is your duty, steadfast in loyalty, my sword and shield in all that will come? Will you swear to never leave me and depart, Harrow?”

“I will.”

Gideon’s expression does something at her response that makes Harrow equally want to die and also tease it out to see once more. And then it’s gone and Gideon is speaking again.

“Will you offer me your every breath and your every minute, first on your mind when you wake and last before you find your rest? Will you serve me with body, heart, soul, and strength, Harrow?”

Harrow closes her eyes, allowing the words to soak through her skin and suffuse her entirely. She opens her eyes again and Gideon is looking at her, expression so intense Harrow fights against looking away instinctively. “I will.”

The process of swearing oneself to be necromancer and cavalier is, by most metrics, a simple one and almost impossible to get wrong. What should come next, in accordance with the tomes of old, is that Gideon seals the oath with a kiss to each palm, says the four words: one flesh, one end, allows Harrow to repeat them in reverence, and from henceforth be two made one, bound by the oaths and duties of a cavalier to their necromancer and a necromancer to their cavalier. 

That is not what Gideon does.

No, Gideon lets go of both wrists and trails her palms over Harrow’s forearms, up along the curve of her biceps, coming to rest at her shoulders. She steps closer, the fronts of their robes brushing.

Harrow's breath catches. Gideon smells of incense, of old and disintegrating bone, of greasepaint and musty Ninth air.

“My cavalier,” Gideon breathes. “Will you make your devotion known to me, Harrow?” Gideon lifts a hand to cup Harrow’s face. Her thumb, free of callouses, smooths over the scar on Harrow’s cheek. “Will you venerate me with your adoration?”

Gideon’s eyes hold something intense, and for the first time, Harrow realises that she has been allowed to recognise her expression. She’s taken aback; how could she not recognise something that looks too much like desire? Gideon wants. Gideon wants _her._

Something snaps in her, loud and violent like the cable that holds the creaking lifts of the Ninth, and her hands fist in the lapels of Gideon’s robe. Gideon doesn’t resist. 

Their teeth clack when Harrow yanks Gideon down for a bruising kiss. There is no reverence in this act, and Gideon’s answering moan is just as damning.

“I will,” Harrow says, voice scratchy and low, and she shoves Gideon backwards to stumble and fall onto a pew. It creaks under Gideon’s weight and then protests again when Harrow mounts up onto Gideon’s lap, bracketing Gideon’s thighs with her own. She unfurls her chain and wraps it around the back of Gideon’s neck, twists the ends around her fists, and pulls down in yet another a burning kiss.

Gideon lets out the filthiest of noises and she takes Harrow’s hips into her hands in the same way she lifts the sacramental chalice. Like she’s sacred. Like what is inside of her is consecrated and holy.

It makes Harrow’s chest ache in a way she can’t put words to and she presses her tongue into Gideon’s mouth, giving herself for Gideon to drink from. She is an offering of iron and adoration, annealed by the fire in her belly, a blade made naked to her charge.

Gideon releases the clasp of Harrow’s cloak and it slips off her shoulders to pool onto the ground below them, baring the skin of her arms to the cold Drearburgh air. She runs her hands over the caps of Harrow’s shoulders, traces her biceps, cups the backs of Harrow’s arms, and marvels at the muscle.

Harrow shivers.

Gideon makes a pretty trilling noise and tips her neck back against the cold irons of the chains. “Touch me, Nova.”

Harrow growls and pulls on the ends of the chains again, yanking Gideon close into a hot and messy kiss. It matters not to her whether God exists, whether God is dead, whether God has any power at all. This is not veneration for a deity, but supplication to a mortal who nonetheless holds Harrow’s salvation in the palm of her hand and blesses her with the benediction of ten thousand kisses blurred together.

Harrow Nova hates Gideon Nonagesimus. She has always hated Gideon. She wishes Gideon would die and with her die the reminders of her failures. She wishes Gideon would simply keel over and perish, wishes she would walk out of the airlock into empty space and suffocate, wishes she would throw herself onto iron spikes and either bleed out or die of sepsis, whichever takes longer. But none of it matters either, because Gideon’s kisses taste like communion wine and the press of long fingers into her hips are blessings drawn on her skin as she throws herself prostrate before the altar.

Gideon lets go and struggles against the sleeves of her robes, discarding them on the bench of the pew. Intent on helping, Harrow works at the buttons of Gideon’s shirt, opening the front to expose her skin to the chilly cathedral air. Her hands splay against Gideon’s chest, the heels of her palms pressing against the sternum, and Gideon makes an awful keening noise into Harrow’s mouth.

Harrow tangles the chains around Gideon’s wrists in figure eights of wrought iron and cups Gideon’s face in her hands, drawing her in for a hot and heady kiss. Her fingers smear against greasy paint and it coats the surface of her tongue. She can feel the weight of Gideon’s hands wrapped around the thickest part of her forearm, holding her close, and Harrow drowns in the smell of sweat, paint, and sex, submerging herself in unholy baptism into her new life.

Gideon meets her there. The steady hands that hold Harrow underwater push her down, and the sound of Harrow’s knees on the stony sanctum floor is the bell ringing a call to worship. 

Harrow’s shaking fingers push open Gideon’s robe and ease off Gideon’s trousers. It feels like transgression to lay her eyes on Gideon’s thighs so instead, she closes her eyes and presses her lips in reverent kisses along hallowed skin.

If Gideon notices her stumbling, she doesn’t mention it. Instead, her chained hands come to rest on the crest of Harrow’s head, the weight of her palms anchoring Harrow to her alter. “Harrow,” she says with strangled voice. “Do not deny me, Harrow, please.”

And who is she to rebuff her necromancer, her saviour, her reason and resolution? Harrow hooks her fingers into the waistband of Gideon’s underwear, tugs it past her knees, and bows her head to press her lips to swollen skin, flicks her tongue out to taste divinity.

Gideon is wet as sin.

The discovery should not shock her so greatly but Gideon gasps and Harrow is spurred forth once more. _Father, forgive me for I do not know what it is I am doing_ , Harrow thinks. She kneels on the ground, her back turned towards the illumination of God, her mouth pressed against Gideon’s cunt, and she worships like a heretic, painting creeds of devotion with her tongue against Gideon’s stiff and swollen clit. 

Above her, chains rattle as Gideon moves her fingers, running them over short-cropped hair as if they were her prayer beads. She speaks in whispers, her prayers to the Undying King broken up with shaking breath and stuttering gasps.

“Harrow,” she whispers, iron links clanking together. “Please.”

Harrow flattens her tongue and drags it slowly up to Gideon’s clit with purpose. Gideon sobs and Harrow hears God’s name on her tongue. It’s everything Harrow never knew she wanted: Gideon’s rapt attention, her prayers lost to the wind and replaced with pleas of adoration. Harrow is a recreant, an apostate, utterly shameless in her desire. She wants, and she wants, and she drinks greedily from the well.

Gideon moans, loud and throaty. Her chest heaves and she throws her head back. “Harrow,” she pleads towards the ceiling. “Fuck me.”

Harrow pulls away, looking up, and is met by the long, unmarked column of Gideon’s throat, the rise and fall of her sternum. Her chin, slick with wetness, cools in the chilly air of this sanctum. Let the Undying King himself strike her down for her insubordination, but she craves to know. “By whose power do you demand?”

The Daughter cracks open an eye and looks down, lips parted as she pants. And then she smiles, asymmetrical, one corner pulled high and languorous, a smile that once plagued Harrow’s existence, but now stirs something that coils like desire in her gut. “The chain. I invoke the chain of Samael.”

Harrow’s breath catches in her throat and she cocks her head to the side, wiping at the edge of her jaw with the back of her hand. Something urges her to speak and she lets a smile spread across her wet lips. “That sounds like sacrilege, my Lady.”

“Then make me unholy,” Gideon breathes, teeth bared, golden eyes flashing dangerously. “Sully me, then sanctify me with your mouth between my legs until I have paid for my transgressions with praises.”

Body. Heart. Soul. Strength. Harrow takes Gideon’s clit back between her lips, pushes two fingers roughly inside her, filling her full to the knuckles.

“God— _Harrow!_ ”

The Daughter may be devoted to the Emperor All-Giving, but Harrow Nova’s devotion is to the Daughter, Gideon Nonagesimus, the despair and delight of her life both. Her knees will bruise and they will be marks of her penance, evidence of her piety. Let it be that the First Flower of the Ninth House is never found to be in want of anything so long as Harrow remains at her side, half a step behind her.

Gideon grinds down with intention, clenching around Harrow’s fingers. “God, Harrow, I need more, please…”

Harrow soaks her paint with Gideon’s arousal and she worships on her knees like a sinner seeking salvation. She carves her prayers with crooked fingers on slick walls and hums out hymns of atonement and adoration. Gideon’s thighs squeeze against her head, fingers scratch against her scalp, and the chains rattle overhead to Harrow as prayer beads to the pious. Harrow venerates and serves penance of her sins until she is absolved by Gideon’s cresting whimpers, her half-formed words, and her quiet cry of deliverance.

Gideon is a vision. Defiled, depraved, debased, debauched. This is her body, broken for Harrow, and Harrow will give thanks in remembrance of her.

Gideon’s hips press up against her tongue once her thighs have stopped shaking, and Harrow indulges her. She’s louder the second time around, a litany of praises and curses both spilling forth from her lips like milk and honey, a sweet, babbling sound, until she comes again, head tipped skyward, screaming Harrow’s name into the stone overhead. It echoes through the sanctuary, echoes in Harrow’s ears, and Harrow is the congregation that extols a most holy _amen_.

Finally, Gideon pushes her away with the toe of her boot and Harrow sits back on her heels, lips parted as she pants. Her immaculate mask of paint is surely smudged if the streaks of grey along Gideon’s thighs are any indication. But if her sin is lust, she’ll tattoo her crimes upon her skin, a record book of her wanton desires.

Gideon untangles the chain from her hands and sets it aside, pushing against the back of the pew and staggering to stand. Her knees buckle and Harrow is up on her feet instantly, an arm wrapped around the waist of her charge to keep her upright. “Harrow…”

Harrow looks up and Gideon’s expression says so much it hurts. And then Gideon’s leaning down to kiss her again and Harrow lets her thoughts evaporate, obsolete against the careful pressure of Gideon’s lips against hers and the way Gideon’s palm feels against her jaw.

Harrow makes no protest when Gideon flips open the front of her trousers, nor when Gideon pushes the waistband down so she can touch her. Instead, Harrow breathes out the softest hallelujah, tipping her forehead against Gideon’s shoulder in shuddering supplication. She feels fingers push inside and Harrow’s cup overflows.

Gideon’s touch is firm and Harrow yields. The sounds she makes are that of a wounded animal lashed against the altar and the fingers spearing into her are the sacrificial knife by which she makes an offering to her new god. Against Gideon’s fingers, Harrow is convicted and sanctified, her open-mouthed panting, perverse prayers in Gideon’s name. Gideon’s fingers work over her clit and Harrow’s holding Gideon up, and Gideon’s holding Harrow up, and when Harrow comes, it is purification—the whole of herself consecrated and made holy by Gideon’s touch.

“One flesh,” Gideon breathes, lips pressed against Harrow’s sweat-damp temple. “One end.”

The sound Harrow makes when Gideon removes slick-shiny fingers is pathetic and she fights her shaking breath long enough to say, “One flesh, one end.”

Gideon lowers them both onto their knees and Harrow allows herself to sink into the open arms of her necromancer, her salvation, her god. She clasps her hands together, fingertips greyed by paint, bows her head, and, with her heretic’s lips, begins to pray.

**Author's Note:**

> File under: things I never thought paying attention to Sunday School as a kid would be good for. Many thanks to [@searchforthescars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchforthescars) for beta-ing this sacrilegious sin and to the Locked Tomb discord for encouraging this horrific bastardising of the liturgy of my own religion. Sorry, but really not sorry, Pastor Alistair.
> 
> Liked it enough to get to the end notes? Drop me a kudos and maybe a comment if you're feeling saucy and so inclined!
> 
> Title from "Pray" by Ryan Vasquez
> 
> Tumblr: [frumpkinspocketdimension](https://frumpkinspocketdimension.tumblr.com)  
> Discord: SweetBabyRae#0967


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